


The Ending of Supernatural Was Bad, And Here’s Why We Feel That Way:  Explaining The Salty Response to That Finale

by thylaa



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Episode Review, Episode: s15e19 Inherit the Earth, Episode: s15e20 Carry On, Meta, Other, Season/Series 15, Season/Series 15 Spoilers, Spoilers for Episode: s15e19 Inherit the Earth, Spoilers for Episode: s15e20 Carry On
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-20
Updated: 2020-11-20
Packaged: 2021-03-09 23:23:03
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,455
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27644090
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thylaa/pseuds/thylaa
Summary: How 15.19 and 15.20 of Supernatural turned online fandom from ecstasy to agony, and let down fifteen years of the show along the way. (An essay collection, with tweets and tumblr posts from the front lines.)
Comments: 48
Kudos: 117





	The Ending of Supernatural Was Bad, And Here’s Why We Feel That Way:  Explaining The Salty Response to That Finale

**Author's Note:**

> I wrote the main part of this up in a fugue state of rage in the early hours of the morning, so all feedback and criticism welcome. You can chat with me over at tumblr (same handle) too. Also please check out the comments section - everyone has so beautifully articulated their sentiments there too, and I consider that a wonderful addition to this meta!

On the night of November 5th, 2020, the internet lit up with a strange, euphoric, manic energy. The third to last episode of fifteen-year-long scripted genre drama _Supernatural_ had just aired. #Destiel trended at number one on twitter internationally. Memes flooded tumblr and twitter – some derisive, some affectionate. But underlying the jokes about 'turbo-hell' and Putin, there was a shimmering kind of validation for the thousands and thousands of fans who had, at any point, shipped the pairing of Dean and Castiel from TV’s _Supernatural_. Fans came back to the show after years and years away, and some new fans even dipped their toes in, excited by the prospect of the legendary Canon Destiel. With two episodes left, they seem to have been promised the textual conclusion of a subtextual romance that had been running for twelve years - an unprecedented, immensely bold moment in culture, full stop. But that... isn't quite what happened.

If you somehow missed out on what happened and have stumbled across here by accident, perhaps from the far future, I’ll make it brief; Castiel declared his long-held romantic love for Dean Winchester, retroactively making twelve years of subtext… text. He then immediately died before Dean could respond, and was sent to the ‘Empty’, an afterlife of suffering and reliving regrets (particularly for Castiel, whom the Empty hated).

It’s hard to put into words what it meant to those fans to have their queer readings of canon validated. Destiel mattered; it mattered so much to people [that they spent two weeks experiencing the symptoms of love sickness](https://bellovescats.tumblr.com/post/634638837609545728/the-way-that-the-physical-symptoms-ive-been) while anxious over whether or not Castiel’s love would be returned. Two weeks bouncing back and forth between euphoria and anxiety over whether the CW would allow Dean to be bisexual, [a reading long held over the years by many fans and writers](https://fanlore.org/wiki/Dean_Winchester#Bisexual_Dean_Winchester). That Dean reciprocated Castiel’s love was not in question to those who had shipped Destiel; not for nothing did he give Castiel a mixtape of songs in Season 12. Songs by Led Zeppelin, the same artist who his mother fell in love with his father for because he ‘knew all the lyrics’. Not for nothing was Dean’s overwhelming grief always the focus whenever Castiel died (often!) [with shots mirroring that of Brokeback Mountain](https://grumpycas.tumblr.com/post/634151636525367296/brokeback-mountain-2005-supernatural-season). Not for nothing did Dean break down when he thought Castiel had died again in purgatory in Season 15, and, upon finding him again, declare that there was something he needed to say.

“You don’t need to say it,” Castiel says, cutting him off. A line that is echoed by his later confession, “Happiness isn’t in having. It’s in being. It’s in just saying it.”

(In case you were wondering what ‘it’ is - it is, of course, ‘I love you’).

I won’t bore you with an essay on why it’s textually clear that Dean loved Castiel back; there is twelve seasons of evidence to that effect, and there are plenty of blogs on tumblr dedicated to that purpose. What I do want to write an essay on is how Destiel acted as the weathervane of _Supernatural_ ’s problems; problems that come from a fandom and writers room split right down the middle on very different interpretations of the show.

** The Family Winchester vs. “Family Don’t End With Blood” **

Spend any small amount of time in the online _Supernatural_ fandom, and you’ll notice there are only two real factions. One believes the brothers are the heart of the show, and they are the beginning and end of it. The other, using a quote said on the show, believes “Family don’t end with blood – and it don’t start there either.” This faction loves Castiel, and Jack, and the secondary characters that revolve around the Winchesters.

This is, to put it lightly, a problem.

There are ships that fall broadly into these two main categories of fans; one is broadly associated with ‘Wincest’ shipping of the brothers, Sam and Dean. That isn’t to say all or even most of the people who prioritise the brothers are Wincest shippers; a lot of them are very conservative viewers who are not as fond of Jack and Castiel. This audience skews older, in the main, and more conservative (yes, including the Wincest shippers, a lot of whom have been around since _Supernatural_ first aired.) They exist online in echo-chamber platforms such as reddit, where conflicting opinions from 'Destiel' fans are downvoted in the extreme. In general, these audiences see the (blood) family Winchester as central to the narrative and message of the show.

The other ship is of course the now famous – or infamous – Destiel, shipping Dean and the angel Castiel. Not all people in this category ship Destiel either – but all appreciate the ‘found family’ of Jack and Castiel, and rotating members such as Kevin Tran, Charlie Bradbury, and Eileen Leahy. To them, _Supernatural_ after Season 3 was no longer about just the brothers – it was about the family they built around them. These fans, (helped no doubt in part by the non-traditional coded relationships of ‘Jack has three dads’ and Dean and Castiel’s would-be romance) skew younger, and heavily LGBT identifying. They exist online in echo-chamber platforms such as tumblr, where an incestuous ship is (largely) seen as morally reprehensible. 

These factions, on the whole, do not get along. ([Understatement](https://fluorescentbrains.tumblr.com/post/635302795219697664/fluorescentbrains-all-4-wincest)).

The show has survived in part because it was able to balance the two factions so well. It seems that the (non-existent) writer’s room was also split by these two factions; it is not lost on anyone that the writers most fans see as belonging to the more conservative faction. (Robert Singer’s wife and her writing partner, referred to by fans as ‘[Buckleming](http://www.supernaturalwiki.com/Buckleming)’, killed off the characters created by queer writer Robbie Thompson – Charlie, a lesbian; Eileen, a deaf woman – and Singer at some point stated he didn’t really understand the problem with killing off Charlie. I won’t speculate further on writer’s room dynamics, but it does seem clear that some writers have very different priorities, ideas, and interpretations of the characters and relationships than others. Suffice to say, for example, the side with the openly gay writers are often responsible for what Dean/Castiel subtext they could get past the radar.)

Whether or not the writer’s room was split, and that is what led to the final outcome of the show or not; the ‘Destiel’ faction, and queer fans in general, always got the impression that they were the audience that _Supernatural_ never wanted. And a finale with an exclusively brothers-focused, strangely incestuous vibe, did nothing to disprove that notion.

** LGBT Fans, Misha Collins, and the _Supernatural_ Powers That Be  **

The history of LGBT fans and _Supernatural_ is a long, rocky, and oft-told story. I do not want to rehash the particulars of [every incident of crew, producers, writers and actors dismissing](https://www.tvguide.com/news/supernatural-queerbaiting-destiel-1089286/) [and mocking](https://twitter.com/megfitz89/status/1302092598899744768) [Destiel shippers](https://twitter.com/megfitz89/status/1302094864239083531?s=20) or [even just the concept of bisexuality](https://www.dailydot.com/unclick/jensen-ackles-homophobia-supernatural-fandom/). (Credit where credit is due however; Misha Collins is a stand out in this area for always going above and beyond to make the LGBT fans of _Supernatural_ feel included, and in recent years the other cast members have increasingly been sensitive about LGBT fandom and active in LGBT causes.) When Charlie, the fan-favourite lesbian character died, the current showrunner [Robert Singer excused that](https://64.media.tumblr.com/c4d7af24f7033c4d991ab67e6927c462/tumblr_nos3tb672O1rds012o2_1280.jpg) as just being ['where the story took them'](https://64.media.tumblr.com/81fef778aa193a2296a1e5b6b48c8d4d/tumblr_nos3tb672O1rds012o4_1280.jpg) \- despite most fans believing that it was completely unnecessary, and a violent, hateful way to go (killed by Nazis, and left to die in a bathtub.) (Perhaps it is worth noting as an aside, that the show and Singer have also had a history of not treating Misha Collins very well [either](https://exitpursuedbyasloth.tumblr.com/post/79142407698/what-were-you-referring-about-maisons-birth-in).)

Let us summarise the relationship instead with the impact; many people in the ‘Destiel’ segment of fandom left the show around 2012-2014 after some of these comments and other incidents that left them feeling particularly betrayed and upset. But enough fans stayed, joined, and came back, for Cas, for Destiel, and for _Supernatural_. And those fans _were_ a substantial section of the fanbase, and certainly the section responsible for spreading the word (and gifs) of _Supernatural_ online. If the ratings had not tanked so hard after Castiel had been killed off in Season 7, Castiel might not have been brought back, [the fandom might not have reappeared again and again](https://www.dailydot.com/parsec/supernatural-ratings-spike-queerbaiting/), and the show might not have kept running, and we might not have been where we are today. But Castiel was integral to the show at this point, just as he was integral to the fandom; the ratings tank after his death is proof enough of that.

I would like, at this point, to borrow a paragraph from this [article by Moira Hicks](https://www.fanbyte.com/features/love-money-and-supernatural-an-elegy-for-destiel/), Which examines how the Castiel confession, in context of the show, is so problematic:

> Supernatural _was perfectly positioned as a show to leverage the explosive potential of online fan engagement as network airing became less significant and streaming became everything — nothing happened quite like_ Supernatural _happened and everything since has tried to catch the same lightning in its own bottle. But when I think of the Destiel confession, I think of the “exclusively gay moment” in Disney’s remake of Beauty & the Beast. A bone to throw at a minority that hungers to see themselves in stories, reified by culture. A thing so fleeting and inconsequential that it can be easily ignored, whether by homophobic families having a nice day at the movies or homophobic governments looking for things to censor. It was what the audience wanted, in a way that would hardly challenge the potential for profit, in the final moments of the story. In much the same way Disney’s ‘exclusively gay moment’ happened mere minutes from the end, the Destiel confession came three episodes from the series finale. Of course, it makes sense that the network would do it now — what use is love to a finished show?_

Castiel’s confession, just as Castiel and Destiel shippers, seemed to have been pulled along until they were no longer useful to the show. I do not blame the confession as ‘queerbait’; on the contrary, I think it’s a beautiful piece of writing and acting by Misha Collins and Robert Berens that is the most masterful stroke of retroactive illumination of a text that could have been done. It is obvious that it took a lot of effort to make that confession successful in an environment that seemed to, even at that point, [edit and tone down the](https://twitter.com/jholden23/status/1327100541974032384?s=21) emotions [of the scene](https://64.media.tumblr.com/bfdd4ab93802cb79ecaa77ddd37aca6f/e04ce91d93bf503b-93/s1280x1920/0ab24a52b1af46d3a7ceffdcca6e4a35e319f39e.jpg). But once Misha and Castiel were out of the way, what need did the money side of things have for Dean to reciprocate? Confirmation would only lead to split profits. Never mind that _Supernatural’_ s future audience would be younger and queerer; never mind that those existing queer fans could rewatch the show and find delight in finding new meaning in the romance between Castiel and Dean.

It's an odd choice, because the economic arguments for a Big Gay Ending are very obvious. Moving forward, _Supernatural_ will move to streaming platforms, primarily the domain of younger and younger viewers with more progressive views than traditional media. More to the point, the ending could have given _Supernatural_ a hugely positive boost in terms of both publicity, new audiences, and rewatchability. Younger audiences are also more likely to be responsible for the merchandise sales associated with the brand. [A tumblr user summarises the frustration with this decision, and how it seems counter-intuitive to future profits](https://livebloggingmydescentintomadness.tumblr.com/post/635409140474429441/now-that-its-all-over-i-gotta-say-how-incredible).

The fact that the Castiel/Dean romance is strangely cut off where it is _clear_ homophobia; as posts on tumblr said at the time – if this were any other show, it would be clear what the outcome would be from the confession of one main character to another, when both are subtextually in love and have been for twelve years. Why set that up before the finale only to disappoint it? If this were a man and a woman, showing explicit confirmation of Dean’s feelings would never be a problem.

The jokes about _Supernatural_ being homophobic have been flowing in since the confession in 15.18, but only with the finale did _Supernatural_ cement the scene as homophobic. That Castiel returns to Heaven rather than staying in the Empty (perhaps, implied, offscreen) is only the slightest salve – Castiel’s immediate [fridging](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/StuffedIntoTheFridge) and Dean’s non-response to the confession is homophobia enough. Part of the reason the reception to this episode was so negative was because there is a sort of unspoken rule in media; you cannot have queer main characters killed off, and give them an unhappy ending. But Castiel’s ending wasn’t just unhappy; his entire arc on the show was a tragedy, if you read his ending as unreciprocated. And he isn’t the only character whose arc is rendered severely tragic by the ending.

** The Final Episodes Were Bad, No Matter Whether or Not You Have a Horse In This Shipping Race **

I can understand people saying that the plot points landed where they wanted them to. I can understand people thinking this ending was what they wanted, even if I disagree.

But on a purely objective level – writing, narrative consistency, and technical execution – This was bad. It blew. And the fact it blew did not help fans who were watching it absorb any of those plot points as ones that were meaningful or made sense. I can’t really sit here and explain to you why it makes no sense that Michael would not know Enochian, the language of angels; why it makes no sense that God would not know what they were planning; or why the ‘Running on Empty’ montage was so poorly put together that [it helped to launch](https://twitter.com/NorthernSprw/status/1327266458909487104?s=20) a [conspiracy theory that 15.19 was terrible… on purpose](https://occamshipper.tumblr.com/post/634654968026120192/hi-im-still-not-really-over-the-last-episode). But even taking lore inconsistencies and poor editing aside, here are just a few of the emotional inconsistencies that arose in 15.19 and 15.20 of _Supernatural_ around the found family narrative (I do not have space to address all of the emotional inconsistencies; do not get me started on Michael’s arc this season. It’s not subversion, it’s just dumb.):

  1. _**The Found Family, Castiel and Jack**_



In Episode 15.17, Dean Winchester says something that left many, many fans cold. In contrast to his previous characterisation – a heroic one, one focused on saving the world – he says that Jack, his adopted son, isn’t family. Jack hears this by accident, and Dean does not apologise – he merely thanks Jack for sacrificing himself to kill God, so that ‘he and Sam’ might live free.

Think about that; not the world, not anyone else. Just him and Sam. The writing was on the wall for the finale, but fans who wanted the brothers to care about more than just each other thought perhaps it was God influencing his thoughts and words (Jensen Ackles later confirmed in a panel that it wasn’t).

Whether or not the brothers-focused section of the fandom liked it, Jack and Castiel were textually family to the Winchesters – many times it is stated during the show that Jack is ‘like a son’ to the Winchesters and Castiel, and they are his fathers. What is so awful about the final few episodes is the emotional arc that Jack and Castiel go on as part of this ‘family’ – many times, Jack and Castiel question whether they are simply tools for the Winchesters, or if they are truly loved by them. Multiple characters, especially villains, (for example, Michael and Crowley) point out that Castiel is just a tool for the Winchesters to use and discard. In 15.18, Castiel tells Jack that he isn’t just a tool for the Winchesters to use, that he is loved.

And yet – Dean never makes that assertion to Jack. (Neither does Sam.) At the end of the series, Jack is God (the exact nature of his existence as a conscious being is debatable between 15.19 and 15.20 as the writing is vague on this point). However, given that he and Castiel are referred to in the context of ‘sacrifice’ for the Winchesters to live – we can assume that it was, indeed, a sacrifice.

Worse still, Sam and Dean don’t seem that bothered by Castiel and Jack’s loss – Dean in particular in episode 20 says that their ‘sacrifice’ was what allowed them to enjoy life. Good for you, Dean – but the implications of that for the two characters who have spent the show trying to be good and worthy enough for love, both dying without that love being properly articulated back? Both the non-humans, both seemingly disposable members of the ‘family’?

Perhaps the ‘found-family’ side of the fandom is wrong to believe this, but in general people believe that Season 12-15 (or, the “Dabb era”) was building the found family dynamic on purpose. To point out that Sam and Dean were more than just the brothers, that they had made a home (In ‘Lebanon’, Dean says to his father that he has a family now.) Perhaps if the ending of Jack and Castiel had been done justice in 15.20 with a family reunion in Heaven, I could have bought it more (even if I still do not like Jack as God). But the dodgy execution and blatant erasure of Castiel’s conclusion, alongside the treatment of both characters as far less important to Sam and Dean than each other left a lot of people with a very bitter taste in their mouths.

  1. **_Castiel and Dean’s relationship_**



There is **_absolutely no good reason_** why Castiel is not brought back in 15.19, or why Dean and Jack (and Sam) do not mention the most or second-most important person in their lives. None. Jack canonically has the powers to bring Castiel back (as of 15.20, we know he does this). And yet Castiel exists in Heaven, apparently separate to Dean, with no character bothering to explain why this is. Because, of course, god forbid we have Castiel and Dean in the same space, lest we have to resolve that pesky homosexual plotline. This is appalling on multiple levels.

First and foremost, we have a romance which – from Castiel’s side, canonically – existed outside the bounds of free will, exemplified the ‘freedom’ which Dean was so desperately seeking from God all season. Such a romance is, as I’ve stated above in various places, expected to be returned by factors of subtextual reciprocation, narrative closure, and because they’re two of the main characters and this is an endgame romantic plotline. Even if, however, you don’t believe this romance is reciprocated; fine. Canonically, Dean cares deeply for Castiel, even if not romantically. In previous seasons (particularly the beginning of s13, but also demonstrated during the projected future Chuck conjures in 15.09) we see Dean being heavily affected by Castiel’s death – to the point of drink, depression, and suicidal ideation in 13.05. When Castiel comes back in 13.06, Dean’s depression magically vanishes into perfectly good humour. For Dean to suddenly forget Castiel in 15.19 and not ask Jack to bring him back is _WILDLY_ out of character. None of the choices around Castiel’s (lack of) return add up, and it all points to one thing; homophobia, and the inability to let these two characters address the romantic arc.

The excuses are coming from the writers already that characters are missing because of COVID: to that I say; nonsense. If Castiel was important, he would be more present in the finale, even in spirit if not in person. He isn’t, because homophobia, and because _Supernatural_ wanted to play the line between whether or not Dean reciprocates. The fact Misha Collins was not in the finale at all was also a pretty big disrespect to the service he’s given the show and the fandom over the years, but that’s beside the point. Fans found it tremendously disappointing that Castiel was not in the finale; particularly because whether or not Misha was involved with the finale remained vague until the end, and so there was a strange stilted mourning over Castiel's absence. 

  1. **_Eileen and Sam_**



While Castiel’s writing off can be attributed to homophobia, Eileen’s is just bizarre. Through Season 15, we have Eileen brought back to life (yay!) – narratively, to serve as Sam’s love interest (and, narratively, to parallel Castiel). Why bring back a character, have Sam dating this character, devastated by her loss, and then simply… never address the character after she dies in 15.18? It is absolutely terrible writing. Perhaps we are meant to read the vague, blurry woman in 15.20 as Eileen – but why not make that explicit? Even if Shoshannah could not come back for filming, there was no reason not to confirm this in text (whether that be a photo of Eileen or a mention of her name in the script). Some people have hypothesised this was another attempt to please the Wincest segment of the fandom, who strongly dislike Eileen and could therefore be satisfied with a simple, placeholder woman who did not really matter to the audience, and, by extension, to Sam. After all, Dean is the only person that matters in Sam’s life, right?

  1. **_...so. Toxic codependency wins?_**



No matter how many Wincest fans come banging on my door declaring the ‘SHOW HAS ALWAYS BEEN ABOUT THE BROTHERS’ I… don’t disagree with them. The show HAS always been about the brothers. But there’s a difference between the show being about the brothers and the show being weirdly, toxically co-dependently about the brothers to the exclusion of any other characters. It’s been _years_ of this. Why would a happy ending for Sam and Dean be one that revolved exclusively around living and dying for each other? Especially when the whole point of Season 15 was that they finally broke free of Chuck’s narrative where they were… toxically codependent around each other? WHAT was the point of breaking free of Chuck’s narrative only to live and die in a similar way?

** What Does This Say About The Characters? **

Of the four main cast of _Supernatural_ , it is hard to say which character was most badly done by the ending. But let us start with our favourite turbo-hell queer angel.

  1. **_Castiel –_**



Castiel goes through most of his existence unfulfilled. Yes, he ends up having a family with Jack, and Sam, and Dean, but only for a very short time is he content in that – most of his time on the show is spent fighting. After season 4, canonically, that fighting is done for love – for Dean. And how does Dean repay him? Over the course of the show, not very well – there’s a reason some Destiel fans quit the ship and show over Dean demonstrating abusive behaviour. And all of that plays into Cas’ self-doubt and believe that he’s just a tool to the Winchesters in the end. All they needed to resolve Castiel’s emotional arc is Dean returning that love, and telling him he is loved too. But no, we have to have a happy ending in Castiel ‘being happy just to say it’. Fuck off. It’s okay to be happy we got that much – I am – but it’s also infuriating that character was not allowed to be happy specifically because they were queer. Queer characters and queer romances deserve better. They deserve to have a happy ending outside of fanfic, for the characters they love. 

More to the point than audience expectation, however; the narrative indicated that ending, by virtue of Castiel being unsure of his worth, by virtue of Dean needing an excuse for his previous behaviour towards Cas, by virtue of the narrative pointing to Cas' love as the example of 'free will' that Dean wished to claim as a choice Chuck couldn't make for him. In the meta-subversion of narrative ‘roles’, Castiel fell in love despite that not being a ‘straight’ love. But his love ended in tragedy. 

  1. **_Jack –_**



Of everything I’ve seen in fandom reaction I will say this; opinion on Jack’s ending is mixed. Some people like the ending of Jack as God even if the execution of how he got there was poorly handled (his speech to the Winchesters in 15.19 was particularly poorly written and strangely distant.) The negative reaction to his ending is because Jack is always portrayed as a child on the show, a three-year-old, no less. As previously mentioned, his emotional arc is steeped in doubt over whether or not he is truly a part of their family, or just a tool. And at the end, he IS a tool used to prop up the world, even if that tool happens to be ‘God’, it is an entity no longer allowed to hang out with the Winchesters or, it seems, exist as a physical being. At least he brought Castiel back to life – even if that was entirely off-screen. 15.19 makes it seem like Jack doesn’t even care about his father anymore.

In the meta-subversion of narrative ‘roles’, Jack was meant to be more than a tool to the Winchesters and live life as a person (similar to Buffy’s sister, the ‘Key’). But he wasn’t, and didn’t.

  1. **_Dean –_**



Dean, Dean, Dean. Killed every bad guy and God, died by a rusty nail. He could have at least gone out in a blaze of glory. What’s the worst part of Dean’s end? He has said for years that he never chose hunting and was forced into it, and felt trapped by ‘Chuck’s story’. Yet the [writers believe](https://twitter.com/megfitz89/status/1329657649160282113?s=20) that Dean always had to die hunting, and could never grow from this point as a character. What? Surely the point of escaping Chuck _was_ to grow as a character. Not only that, but the way in which he treats Castiel and Jack through the narrative is not redeemed in the end – despite Castiel’s speech to him, he never makes amends for how uneven his relationships were with those two characters. As previously mentioned, his narrative with Castiel is offensively truncated because, again, homophobia.

Oh, and – although this isn’t universally accepted in the fandom and seems to vary by writer, many people see John Winchester as textually abusive. (There are many examples of this). Sharing Dean’s heaven? If you say so.

In the meta-subversion of narrative ‘roles’, Dean was meant to escape the life of hunting and his brother as written by Chuck, and find purpose outside it. He was meant to grow beyond the soldier that John Winchester trained him into, and the boxed-in protagonist of the _Supernatural_ series. (In the ‘dream’ that Michael presents him, he is given a bar, and is proud of his achievement owning it. It would also have been amazing to bring bisexuality in as a character trait never ‘recognised’ by Chuck here too.) And yet Dean only lives a few weeks or months after Castiel’s sacrifice, and his character never develops past that point. He never gets the subversive queer romance outside the text, either.

  1. **_Sam –_**



To be honest, the writers have done Sam a bit dirty for a long time. I won’t pretend I even know what his arc was meant to be; leadership? Witch apprentice? Boy King of Hell? But his ending is almost comedic in how poorly it shows… anything about his growth at all. We see Sam grow terribly depressed from Dean’s loss, he is given a bland wife that neither he nor the audience care about, and it is made clear that his emotional core is exclusively Dean. Eileen who? The pictures on the wall around Sam's deathbed are entirely of the Winchesters and his son - not his wife, not Jack, not Castiel, not any of the found family he once claimed to have.

  1. **_Eileen, And All The Others (Especially Women):_**



Billie, surviving cast member of colour, killed off. Amara, absorbed into Jack. Eileen, deaf woman, crucially important in episode 15.18 and then never given mention again. Killed off, for a SECOND TIME, offscreen. And all the other characters – Charlie, Donna, Jody, even Kevin Tran – we are meant to imply their survival, but we never truly know. Perhaps the latter was something that COVID affected, but it still leaves the text grossly centred on the Winchesters with little to no regard for their friends.

[[Image source](https://gabrielrightsactivist.tumblr.com/post/635219032557191168/jack-we-re-at-peace-amara-stuck-in-a-twink-s)]

** Did Family Really End in Blood? **

At the end of the day, it came down to this; two fandoms, two stories, both alike in dignity. brothers vs. found family, Montagues vs. Capulets. And to say that every person in the fandom falls into these two categories is completely untrue; plenty of fans are a healthy mix of caring about both things, or indeed not caring very deeply about the show at all. But there was no reason to end the show with such a slap in the face to the fans of the found family, and of Destiel. No matter what you ship, no matter who you like in the show, the ending did not do justice to these characters’ arc, or their story. It undid the Word of God that had control over their lives, only for them to run headlong into tragic endings.

At one point in the show, in Season 8 or 9, Crowley says to Kevin something along the lines of – “The Winchesters pretend to love you, but in the end it’s all about them.” And that’s what the narrative showed us too – not just for Cas, Jack, Eileen, Kevin and the rest. No, the show was all about the brothers – and not the legions of fans who loved the other characters, the other relationships, and kept the show going in online fandom and pop cultural relevance. 

** The Final Legacy of _Supernatural_ **

The night of the _Supernatural_ finale, tumblr and twitter was alive. Everyone was so excited, so convinced that Dean and Castiel was going to ‘go canon’. Whether or not the subtext was there, it’s clear that Dean’s side was left deliberately ambiguous; hell, even Castiel’s blatantly romantic declaration was somehow no-homo’d by people who insisted the ‘one thing Castiel could never have’ might be ‘family’ (what?). For anyone outside of that bubble, you cannot imagine what it meant to have hope like that in a dream that this queer ship might be canonised after all these years.

After the finale, people flooded to social media to laugh, rage, and cry. There was barely a positive post on twitter on tumblr (or at least, not one from people that didn’t ship Wincest or were associated with the writers/cast). In time, the details of this betrayal will slip away, and people will look back on this as a mediocre finale to a mediocre show. But _Supernatural_ was never a mediocre show; if it was only that, it would not have the large and dedicated fanbase it has accrued over the years, the same fanbase that kept it alive. While the plot points and season arcs and production values have jumped all over the place, it’s always been a show that people have loved. It’s always been a show with characters that people identified and empathised with beyond reason.

They had a chance to tie up this story right, and do right by those characters. And – according to a very loud segment of their audience – they failed.

Is it a lot to ask for half-decent writing from a CW show? No, I don’t think so – _Supernatural_ ’s writing has, at times – even recently – been excellent. It’s outrageous to think the ending of a fifteen year series could have been so sloppy even with – as previously mentioned – minor and major points of continuity. Was it always too much to ask for a queer romance between two lead characters to be unambiguous when a large segment of the audience leans very conservative? Perhaps, even in 2020, it was. But I don’t think it is too much to ask that a little more care be shown towards the characters and the fans of the show that have filled it with passion and kept it on air for fifteen years. Or for the show to care more about the ‘found family’, rather than just the brothers Winchester.

Overnight – as I am writing this on the 20th of November, 2020, one day after the finale – _Supernatural_ is already fading from people’s twitter feeds and tumblr dashboards. The mania of Destiel November is receding, and as with Game of Thrones, this will become something people once again don’t really think or speak about in online fandom spaces – or if they do, with a slight, self-depreciating laugh and a “remember when?” The lasting conversational legacy around _Supernatural_ ’s finale will largely be about [Destiel, and how it buried the gays](https://www.businessinsider.com.au/supernatural-last-episode-when-destiel-queerbaiting-end-fandom-tumblr-2020-11).

It’s frustrating that the show came so close and missed so hard. But the legacy of the show will live on in other places, even if the story did not end as well as it should have. In the millions of words of fanfiction, countless hours poured into fanart, and most importantly, in the friendships and memories of the fans who lived in the _Supernatural_ space for a moment, together.

And with regards to Destiel in particular - even if that moment in the sun was brief, an entire generation of _Supernatural_ fans believed in a wonderful, impossible dream. And that moment of hope, craziness and love sickness was unlike anything we’ll ever experience again. Other people might not get what that was like, but it was beautiful, it mattered, and it will continue to matter. Castiel is queer, he and Dean were constructed as a love story, and the confession made that textual – and that cannot be taken away, no matter what else the ending may have gotten wrong.

The top trending post on the ‘Supernatural’ tag on twitter on the day of the finale was as follows:

But hey, maybe in time, we'll just remember the good parts of the journey, and not the end. And at the very least, we can all laugh together at the memes that were spawned from this atrocity. 

** A Last Love Letter To the Fandom **

I think it's easy to make fun of _Supernatural_ , and _Supernatural_ fans. A CW show relegated to the 'Superwholock' era of tumblr, even I myself until recently had shoved the fandom to the back of my mind. But the truth is, even though the finale was a let down - the _Supernatural_ fandom has always been the most incredibly passionate, hardworking, and generous community of people. Coming back into Destiel fandom this year, alongside many people who returned or were newly initiated with 15.18, was the reunifying of a rather special community. 

Perhaps what was so upsetting about the finale to many was that the show had disproven what the fandom had proved; that family didn't end with blood. Not at all. Countless people came through _Supernatural_ fandom bonded to friends all across the world, through conventions and fanfic and tumblr and livejournal and twitter. It bonded people in a way few other televisions shows have, and permeated the pop culture of a certain generation of young people in a way few other television shows will. 

I would argue that the fans of _Supernatural_ classically categorised as 'tumblr fans' were perhaps the most passionate and dedicated to the show. Millions of words of meta, of fanfic, of feelings - thousands of gifs comparing scenes, countless works of fanart. They read deeply into the text wherever they could, in a way fans in places like Reddit simply did not. (This seems to be a symptom of how the particular Reddit community attracted an echo chamber of casual fans uninterested in much discourse; in contrast, this is not true of a show like _Game of Thrones_ , where Reddit housed most of the fandom's meta explanations.) But unlike Game of Thrones, the theories and meta around _Supernatural_ in the main were not overly convoluted or based in lore; they simply believed in certain theme, relationship and character interpretations that seemed evident, that certain writers like Yockey brought to the fore of their episodes. Episode 15.18 seemed to validate so many of those interpretations, including Destiel - but also that Dean was a character full of love, that Jack was a character who was more than just useful. And then the finale made them feel like their interpretation of the text was untrue; that the text had never housed a deeper message of found family at all, and what they cared about didn't matter. And that rejection of the 'tumblr' interpretation hit hard, particularly after years and years of 'tumblr' fans being dismissed. As tumblr user dykecas commented:

> _"That we as fans, as queer fans especially, made this show what it is, (...) that we've put our time and effort into carving statues from their blocks of untamed marble, and we've never, ever, ever gotten the respect or love we deserve in return. It's absurd. It's ridiculous. And to push the "write your own ending", "you'll always have AO3", as if our stories, our passions, our grief, and our love, will never be worth anything to anyone who isn't us. It's not marketable, it's not palatable, and it will never see the light of day. (...) And that's the worst part, too - to make us feel ashamed, humiliated, to think we ever deserved something better."_

For all of that though, there was a community left standing of disappointed fans who came together like nothing else. Nothing stands as a testament to their power, or their beautiful sentiment of grief and hope, than [the Trevor Project fundraiser for Castiel that raised over $50,000 for LGBT+ youth](https://give.thetrevorproject.org/fundraiser/3037563). Thousands of messages were left on the fundraiser, a small marker of how this finale affected them. I'd like to end with an anecdote left on this essay when it was first posted (you can find the full comment below in the comments section), which I think sums up something positive that came from all of this. Regardless of the finale, the legacy of the fandom will endure in the hearts and minds of many.

> _“The show may have ended in one of the worst ways possible but I'll always be thankful for my experience with SPN because of everybody I encountered during those formative years. I know that I wouldn't be here today if it wasn't for the people I mentioned previously._ _A wise man once told me family don't end in blood, but it doesn't start there either. Family cares about you, not what you can do for them. Family's there through the good, bad, all of it. They got your back even when it hurts. That's family._ _Nothing can take away the good memories that I've had while being in this fandom and I'll love my SPN family forever!"_


End file.
